HAMPTON, Ga. — Brad Keselowski entered Saturday night’s race 30th in the season point standings, well outside of the realm of playoff contention. He ended lap 259 of 260 with both victory and that postseason bid well in hand.
Turns out Chase Elliott had other ideas.
Elliott’s last-lap pass on Keselowski left the No. 6 Ford settling for second despite running up front for most of the latter part of the race. After an early crash eliminated half of the field, he was in prime position to turn around a disastrous season with a season-high 46 laps led.
Instead? Keselowski let another EchoPark Speedway win slip away. He’s 0 for his last 11 at Atlanta despite posting two runner-up finishes and 119 laps led.
“I don’t think about [the playoffs], I just want to win… every [loss] stings,” Keselowski said.
Turns out Keselowski was swapping the lead with other drivers who needed a win just as much as he did. He represented the reality for many of the drivers that found themselves scattered throughout the top-five finishers, a list that included the likes of Tyler Reddick and Erik Jones.
Just one spot back in sixth place was Ricky Stenhouse, Jr., who needed some good press more than anything after the past few weeks. Stenhouse, in the midst of a summer slump, is one of many who have been victimized by the recent spate of first-time winners: he’s gone from 17 points above the cutline to 73 points below it in the course of a month.
Zane Smith (sixth), Ty Dillon (eighth), and Carson Hocevar (10th) were also all drivers who needed a win, coming close but forced to settle for top-10 finishes instead. While Elliott ended a 44-race winless streak Saturday, he sits second in points and would have likely made the playoffs regardless of whether he ended up in Atlanta victory lane.
Will there be other opportunities ahead? Three road courses remain on the regular season schedule, all of which could easily be dominated by road course aces Shane van Gisbergen or AJ Allmendinger (Allmendinger would take another spot in the 16-driver postseason field). Daytona International Speedway sits as a wild card in August along with a newer oval on the Cup schedule, Iowa Speedway.
It leaves even Reddick, the highest-ranked winless driver in the standings, feeling a bit unsafe. He made it a point to highlight that as the different winners pile up, the points for finishing well become less valuable.
“[This finish] is nice, for sure, but as more and more people continue to win, points really matter less and less,” Reddick said. “… There’s only four spots left, but we’re running good, and we’ll continue to compete.”
Elliott makes the 12th different winner thus far on the season, inching ever closer to that 16-winner mark that would do more than shake up the “win and in” Playoff format that is, of course, the standard now.
If NASCAR is looking to create its game seven moments, it looks like the end of the 2025 regular season could be a defining moment in and of itself, even before a champion is crowned.
Tanner Marlar is a staff writer for Sports Illustrated’s OnSI Network, a contributor for TopSpeed.com, an AP Wire reporter, an award-winning sports columnist and talk show host and master's student at Mississippi State University. Soon, Tanner will be pursuing a PhD. in Mass Media Studies. Tanner began working with Frontstretch as an Xfinity Series columnist in 2022.